At
the Barber’s
“Where’s the latest copy of Maxim?” says the thirty-something guy in a black t-shirt and with
grizzled stubble on a square jaw that brings to mind George Clooney. He’s
waiting till Isaac finishes cutting my hair so he can take my place in the
barber chair.
“No
new magazines,” Isaac announces to him and me and the other barber, who’s
reading the Post. “No one read them
no more. Everyone looking at smart phone.”
This
was news that I should have read on the Huff
Post or the Daily Beast. This was
epochal, the sort of stuff the NY Times
sends out a reporter to cover. Like subway riders, barbershop patrons now read
from a screen, not the printed page. Another cause for the decline in newspaper
and magazine circulation and advertising. Another gain for electronic media at
the expense of print.
For
ages men have caught up on Playboy
and Business Week and Sports Illustrated at the barbershop,
but now they’ll have to read them on their smart phones or give them up. Maybe they’re
still at the dentist’s or the dermatologist’s, but not at the barber’s.
Next time I need my
hair cut, I’ll have to remember to bring my Android to read from.
